ST. SEBASTIAN. 
23 
inadequate to this object. The strongest efforts of the imagination 
cannot picture any thing so heavenly as the country, or so disgusting 
as the town. The first contains many of the noblest works of nature in 
their greatest freshness and beauty, on a magnificent scale ; the latter 
exhibits all the disgusting objects which pride, slavery, laziness, and 
filth can possibly engender. When I state that the face of high 
mountains is often covered with a sheet of blossom, a faint appre- 
hension may perhaps be formed of the beauties of the country ; but 
when I aver that on entering some parts of the town, I almost 
lamented that I had an organ of smell, I give no idea of the stench 
which exhales from the accumulated ordure of its streets. 
